So say researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in this month’s Psychosomatic Medicine journal.

A team led by psychiatrist Joseph E. Schwartz and his colleagues drew up personality profiles for 283 men before taking their blood pressure. Their conclusion: Men with mild hypertension were no likely to be more aggressive, angry and anxious – all hallmarks of Mr. Type A – than those with normal blood pressure.

Even so, researchers didn’t discount the possibility that personality plays at least some role in developing high blood pressure, especially if there’s a family history of the disease. They also say work and status affect it, too: High blood pressure was more common in men with demanding jobs, but little say in decisions.

Laughter is still the best medicine

In his best-selling book, “Anatomy of an Illness,” Norman Cousins told how megadoses of the Marx Brothers and “Candid Camera” helped him beat a debilitating disease.

Now comes the news that humor can relieve allergies, too.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association describes how 26 Japanese men and women – all suffering atopic dermatitis, an allergic inflammation of the skin – responded to Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 flick, “Modern Times,” with hearty laughter. Afterward, injections of dust-mite allergens had less effect.

A screening of a weather information video yielded no such benefit.

Scientists say laughing helps increase the antibodies that fight upper respiratory disease – and at the same time decreases the amount of serum cortisol, which causes stress.

Theory bites the dust

True or False: Eating lots of fruit and vegetables will cut your risk of breast cancer.

According to the study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the answer is: False.

A team led by epidemiologist Stephanie Smith-Warner of the Harvard School of Public Health tracked 350,000 women who filled out detailed questionnaires about their diets and health. The result? All that fiber had no significant effect on reducing cancer.

The survey follows two other Harvard Medical School reports that yielded surprising conclusions: that a low-fat diet won’t reduce the risk of cancer, and that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables won’t prevent colorectal cancer.

Nevertheless, says Smith-Warner, that’s no reason to cut back on fruits and vegetables, since they’ve been shown to lessen the risk of heart disease and diabetes. A fiber-rich diet, she adds, also cuts down on obesity – a known risk factor for breast cancer.

Unraveling dyslexia

For years, no one knew why Johnny couldn’t read. Now scientists are saying dyslexia has its roots in the brain, where a small defect affects the ability to see letters as they are.

The good news is that the condition can be overcome with intensive training.

“Dyslexia is not an auditory problem and not a visual problem. It’s a problem with the auditory-visual connection,” says Frank Wood, a neuropsychiatrist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

He says that knowing the biological cause of dyslexia, which afflicts 10 percent of the population, should help researchers devise better ways of diagnosing the disorder early, so children can get the help they need.